Health Care Talk (HCTalk.com)

[chesteve]

Letter from an American friend in Germany, March 15, 2010
In general, I think the system works pretty well. It gives choices for those with enough money to afford either private insurance or additional insurance for those in the gov. health system. There are certainly drawbacks with both. In the gov. system, as a patient you always go to your general practitioner (GP)first (EUR 10 for the 1st visit in a quarter of a year), he will refer you on to specialists if need be. In Germany all doctors fees are set by the governing bodies, so its not the case that doctors can charge different rates for gov. health insured patients. In some cases, there are things which are not covered by insurance, for example cosmetic surgery, etc - so this is paid on your own.
GPs only get paid once a quarter for patient visits no matter how often they come, so with a slew of older patients, you can have negative income. Because of this, as a patient you sometimes get moved through the system very quickly (ie. 5 minute Doctor visit) because there so little money to be made. Many students who could become doctors are either deciding to do other things or become specialized due to lack of renumeration - so in some parts of Germany we are seeing a lack of doctors and those that are good are horribly overworked and underpaid! Doctors get paid better (per visit) if the patient is privately insured so its in their best interest to have a good amount of such patients to offset those with gov. health plans. Waiting times can be longer for gov. health patients, but not for any type of catastrophic illness. I have never heard of anybody pulling the plug or such things - remember 85% of the population is gov. insured!
The drawback with the private health system is that the premiums go up each year! I`m not sure what they will be when I reach retirement age!!! The advantages are no waiting, no having to go to a GP first (you can go straight to the specialist), better rooms in the hospital, etc.
To put it in a general perspective, because I am over the salary band I have elected to go with private insurance. In gov. health care I would pay the max. EUR 570. With private insurance I pay EUR 615 for myself and my son Ethan per month. Remember that if you work for an employer, the employer will pay half of your monthly premium. This is a great thing!
Take care to you! Sean

For a description of the plan in detail for people moving to Germany, see
www.howtogermany.com and then click on Medical/Dental/Health.
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Cheryl